Mindwalker by Kate Dylan
(Hodder & Stoughton, 2022)
Reviewed by Jamie Mollart
Sil Sarrah is the eponymous Mindwalker for Syntex Corporation, a tech giant thriving in the aftermath of the Annihilation. The Mindwalkers are a specialist division within Syntex, combat experts who help Syntex operatives extract themselves from dangerous espionage situations when they have reached the limit of their own abilities. But Mindwalkers are not standard Special Operative Forces, they instead connect their brains with those of the people they are trying to extract, take control of their bodies, and with the help of powerful AI companions, rescue them while effectively using them as puppets.
Chosen at a young age, because of a specific DNA marker and socio-economic profile, the Mindwalkers have a powerful computer grafted to their brain, enabling them to connect to their target’s brains, while their personal AI accesses the Syntex database and provides them with all the information they need to facilitate the extraction.
The downside to this immense power is that the computer installed in their heads has an inbuilt obsolescence which causes it to burn out and kill the Mindwalker at some point around their 19th birthday.
Sil is Syntex’s top operative, the proud possessor of a 100% record, having never let someone die while she’s controlling them, but with only 12 months to go before her computer is likely to burn out it’s a record she is fighting desperately to keep as the cracks begin to show in the effectiveness of her AI.
When a mission goes wrong, and she is forced into hiding she begins to realise how much she relies on her failing tech and also how much she has to still live for.
To try and prove her innocence to Syntex she infiltrates a terrorist organisation which is intent on bringing down the corporation. Her plan is to destroy the Analog Army from within, but the charming and reckless leader Ryder shows her something that makes her doubt everything she knows about Syntex and with it her own life. Now with the tech she relies on rapidly degrading and with it her own life slipping away she must race to uncover the truth about Syntex before it’s too late.
If this makes Mindwalker seem like a cinematic romp that’s because it is. It reads at a relentless pace with a clear eye on the big screen, wearing its influences firmly on its sleeve—from Bladerunner to Total Recall to Scanners. Touching on body modification, the way in which tech is so utterly wrapped up in our modern lives, and the power of tech giants such as Apple, Google and Facebook have globe spanning influence, this does what all good sci-fi does—discuss the present through the lens of the future. Syntex could be any big corporation and the tech which Sil sports never seems more than a few years away. The relationship the characters have with the organisation is one which is eerily familiar—a sense of reliance, tinged with awe and weariness in equal measure.
Considering this is a world after an apocalypse it’s very similar to our own and the world building is done with a relatively light touch, but it’s enough to make it convincing, with some lovely cultural references, including the Marvel Universe thrown in there.
For a YA/Crossover novel this deals with big ideas with a strong hand and is probably pitched more Crossover than YA. There’s plenty of swearing, some fairly explicit sex and some pretty gruesome violence in there, so it’s certainly at the top end of YA. But this makes it a thoroughly enjoyable read for an adult, in fact I must admit I only realised it wasn’t intended for a purely adult audience when I read the blurb from the publisher.
Despite probably not being the key target demographic, I absolutely burned through this book and enjoyed every minute in its pages.
Review from BSFA Review 19 - Download your copy here.